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Battle Royal

Above warm earth where gilt sun glows,
a message writ in scrawl of wings,
jet black on silver as they rose:
a raven and a peregrine.
At war with plunges and with throes,
two handsome birds beloved by kings;
a storm of plumage in the sky
marks battle fought for mastery.

Today Frank has introduced a form ladyleemanila used in a poem linked to our last Open Link Night: the ‘ottava rima, an old Italian form consisting of multiple stanzas, each of eight lines, using iambic meter and having the rhyme pattern abababcc.

Frank tells us that two famous poems were written in ottava rima: Lord Byron’s ‘Don Juan’ and William Butler Yeats’ ‘Sailing to Byzantium’, and he has shared recordings of Tom O’Bedlam reciting some excerpts from the first canto of ‘Don Juan’ and the four stanzas of Yeats’ poem.

He says that, although one can go on and on indefinitely with ottava rima stanzas, for this challenge let’s limit the number of stanzas to one to four, on any topic we want.

Apparently ravens and peregrines have been known to clash. The interesting thing is that ravens have always been kept at the Tower of London and it’s said that if they ever fly away, the Tower and Britain will fall. From medieval times, peregrine falcons were used as hunting birds by kings and princes and remained popular among royalty until the reign of George III. The Stuarts were particularly fond of the sport and Henry VIII was perhaps the most important falcon advocate. By ancient tradition, the king of England is presented with a falcon at the time of his coronation by the Duke of Athol and Lord Derby, and the office of royal falconer, called Master of the Mews, still exists.